If this has been discussed to death please let me know and delete this…
What is everones opinion on staggering wheel sizes front to rear? Forget that it looks better, this is the tech fourm. From say an autox or road racing/time trial view why would you do this? I mean you can fit a 9.5" wheel on the front of a 240, so why not run it all around? A stock S14 with skinny ass tires tends to understeer a little unless pushed to oversteer, often fixxed by installing a good sway bar in the rear or some other suspension parts/tuning. Since it is something that can be adjusted with you suspension setup, why not run the same large tire size at all four corners increasing the cars contact patch with the pavement and just setup the suspension for the slight oversteer that most road racers want?
Am i missing something? Perhaps, but how much easier it would be to be able to rotate your directional R compounds rather than throwing them out with the outside looking brand new…most JGTC and Touring class RWD cars run HUGE front wheel/tire combos…
Just something i’ve been thinking about and wanted some point of view on…
I don’t do mexi/drifter flush so no 9’s up front for me. I run 8’s and 9’s. I don’t believe in staggering more than an inch on a FR car. I also believe in running decent size tires on my wheels.
My setup is;
17x8 225/45-17
17x9 255/40-17
Another reason I like the 1" stagger is because it allows you to go 30mm wider on the tires and 5% lower aspect ratio and you keep the exact (within 1%) tire sidewall height and shape (stretch, bulge, etc). I always laugh when I see guys with 215/45-235/40 setups, I guess they don’t care that their front are taller than the fronts. lol
If all I can fit up front is an 8" wheel, why not run 8’s all around you ask? Because with the 255’s on the 9’s I actually have a chance at hooking up in second gear corners. I like sliding and burning tires as much as anyone, but 90% of my driving is spent with the tires gripping.
I haven’t gotten into the realm of staggard fitments yet, but for me I think the more relevant thing is the width of the tire itself. I would rather have the same tire at all 4 corners simply because I would rather not have their differing widths determine the handling characteristics of my car. I want my car to oversteer or understeer because that’s the way my suspension is set up.
Still, there’s a point where wider rear tires become necessary unless you wanna run crazy offsets on the front. But I’d still want to keep them as close as possible. 17x10s front and back? You’d feel just like a GT car with insane offsets 8) Not to mention that sucker would stick like mad through the bends. keeps dreaming
wheel staggering not only upsets handling balance, but braking balance as well. your rears will tend to lock up sooner than the front with a stagger, and you increase understeer with a staggered setup. now those can be managed with a good braking setup/proportioning valve and adjustable sway bars.
people like to use the staggered because you lose a little turning radius/turn in with 9" front wheels. the guys at auto-x here almost always use the same with front and rear tires. they go as wide as they can in an R compound to get the maximum grip. that may mean having to run a 15X7 with 215/50/15 R compound rather than a 225/40/17 street tire, but the R will undoubtedly grip better.
